


The Abdication of Loki son of Odin

by Keenir



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Thor Movies, Confrontations, Gen, never the right time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 22:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having failed to convince Sif and the Warriors Three that Odin did the right thing, Loki offers to abdicate.</p><p>Sif and the others naturally try to talk him out of it.</p><p>...and the confrontation may change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Abdication of Loki son of Odin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stay](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/25818) by thetrueparadisecity. 



> This begins in the "Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!" scene, but history changes shortly before Sif can say "Loki may speak of the good of Asgard..."

**FRIENDS**

The fire roared its silent flames as it had always done for as long as Loki could remember, and suspected it had been that way in Odin's boyhood as well.

Having tried and failed to persuade Sif and the Warriors Three - _again, once again_ \- he opted for a tactical retreat. Confrontation over and done with, Loki walked to the door, wondering why nobody saw what was so very clear to him. _They all merrily rush to Thor's defense when he is not here - but then, they rush to his side when he is. Always. Every time. No matter what I do, wherever I am..._

And then a thought occurs to him, stopping him in his tracks.

"Something the matter?" Volstagg asks, concerned for a friend, even one as distant as Loki could be at times.

Loki smiles, turns back and rejoins the company so he might say, "Yes. Yes there has been a matter. But it is not something which will be a concern from here onwards."

"That's good," Sif remarks.

"For I am leaving."

Hogun startled. Fandral tripped over his own feet. Volstagg spit out his drink and had a mild coughing fit. Sif felt somewhat ill, and not from watching Volstagg with food. "What?" they each asked in their own way.

"Asgard. I intend to depart from it," Loki said.

"This is a trick, yes?" Fandral asks, then smiles as if to say, Yes, I get it.

"No trick," Loki says. "I was fooling myself anyway. Thor will return to us, and everything will continue as it has for centuries."

 _You make that sound like a bad thing, Loki,_ Sif thought. _What brings this acid? This is not the ire you normally attack with._

Loki was still talking: "And when Odin passes the throne to Thor...well, there is only so many times I care to retread the ground of today. So there is only one thing I can do."

"Get Thor?" Fandral asked. "I'll go with you. Between the beasts and the wenches, you'll need protection."

"And who will protect the beasts from your attention?" Sif teased him.

"My father saved us today," Loki said, in part to keep them from escalating. "I will not repay him with disobedience of such a scale."

"Then what?" Hogun asked.

"The only thing I _can_ do. Abdicate. Retire to a world."

"Asgard is a world," Sif says before she can stop herself.

Volstagg better says what Sif had been thinking: "Why would you want to retire? You're a prince."

"One who will never inherit," Loki says. "Odin will continue on with all the strength he has always possessed. And Thor's rule..." and Loki shook his head. "I have deluded myself long enough; I will never sit in the throne. Best I find a thing I can do, and do it."

"You have always been a friend - you can remain here and continue to be one," Sif said.

Loki smiles again, but this time he lets it show sorrow and regret, those arrows to the heart. "I am the second son, Sif. You were all friends of Thor _long_ before you let me be your friend. That is the way of it. Look at what you were discussing - nearly doing - before I spoke to you of my contemplation of leaving Asgard."

"Thor was banished," Hogun says.

"Truly," Loki says, "if it were _I_ who had been banished, which of you would be arguing for haste in bringing me back?"

Fandral and Hogun look at each other.

"I would!" Volstagg says. "If it meant going against anyone but Heimdall."

Fandral nods.

"Your honesty is ever appreciated, Volstagg," Loki thanks him, and looks to Sif next for her reaction, and her answer if it is not contained in her reaction.

She meets his gaze, steady, steadfast. "Do you hate us so, Loki, because we are not your friends alone?"

Loki blinks. "I do not _hate_ anyone, Sif. I have a great many emotions, many with specific targets. But I do not hate. Not even Thor." Exhaling, he circled the sofa. "But nothing loves its leash, and all trees seek to leave the shade."

"Vanir poetry isn't helping," Fandral said, trying to lighten the mood, since that was Loki's hobby usually, and Loki was otherwise occupied.

"I suppose not," Loki agreed.

"Where would you go?" Sif asked, her curiosity worn by the armored glove of duty.

"I've no doubt Heimdall will be able to keep an eye on me, as will the Allfather."

"If you do not hate us, then why do you avoid answering?"

Volstagg looked at Fandral and Hogun - both watching the pair - and wondered how he was the only one who could see the obvious here.

"Because I know you four, the loyal friends," Loki said. "You will inform Thor the moment he returns, and he will come and drag me back to Asgard, my own opinion a trifle." Loki leaned against the sofa, considering sitting, considering just leaving now and not bothering with further explanation. "A noble trait shared by the four of you, do not mistake me on that. But it forces me to deny you an answer I would otherwise provide."

"What if we didn't tell Thor right away?" Fandral asked. _A head start or something._ "If Thor asks where you are, we say you're out for a few days. The Allfather has been known to walk among the worlds - why couldn't you?

"A tempting thought," and it was.

"Then give in to it," Sif said.

"Would you?" Loki asked her. "No, that was an unfair question, one which I retract. Very well. My intent is to reside on Midgard. At least for a while."

"And then you will return?" Sif asked, again with the glove.

"I will certainly return to Asgard before I die. You have my sworn word on that, Sif," Loki vowed.

"And before then?"

"We shall see."

Her mind formed scenarios with ease, the honed result of centuries of study of tactics. "And if Thor's return does not come before Odin is no longer upon the throne?" she asked.

 _What troubles you? There is a worry in your mind._ "There is the Allmother," Loki answered. "And, before you ask, should something befall even her, there is you."

"Me?"

"Sif?" Hogun asked.

"Her ancestors ruled Asgard before old King Buri," Loki said. "If the House of Odin does not stand, the land reverts to the former owners, I believe."

"I would not rule," Sif insisted vehemently. "I can not."

"Your odds of ruling are slimmer than my own. And mine are slender enough that I may slide through the cracks to abdication."

Nobody said anything for a while, and Loki was about to take that as adequate victory and the closest he would get to approval from them, when Fandral clapped once and declared "AHA!"

Everyone looked at him.

"We're all tense. On edge," Fandral said. "Volstagg eats, I pace, Sif is a giant raw nerve, Loki -"

Loki held up a hand and said, "I believe that to have been established. Where does the 'aha' fit in?"

"We five go on an adventure. Something to occupy our minds, burn off the tension and nervousness."

"A fine idea, though Heimdall would see right through it if we sought an adventure on Midgard."

 _And he wouldn't see through it if you went alone to Midgard?_ Sif wondered.

"Then we don't go to Midgard," Fandral said. "I hear that this time of year the vales on Alfheim are perfect for a band such as ours."

"And Thor?" Hogun asked, phrasing Loki's next question better than he would have. "We would go without him?"

"Well yes, but -"

Loki's good mood, having begun to arise again, soured back down. "We dedicate the journey to him, or hold it in his honor? A fine sentiment, loyal Fandral, but it returns to the point I made before."

"You think we do everything for Thor," Sif said at the same time Volstagg said the same idea in a Volstagg-ish way.

"Were you not listening just now, to Fandral if not to me? I should be offended, were I not accustomed to it."

"Loki -" Sif and Fandral objected.

"No," Loki said, turning his head to the side. "Please, say no more. Your intents are well, and your aims are true. But this has all amounted to little more than stalling for time. We have all done it on our adventures oft enough that I recognize when it is arrayed against me. Hale and prosperous lives to you all. I go to the Allfather now," Loki said, and walked away, leaving.

 _It amounted to more,_ Sif thought, suspected, wondered.

But nobody could find anything to say, until Hogun said "He's doomed."

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**ALLFATHER**

"You would what?"

"Let us not do this, father," Loki says, standing at the foot of the steps which lead up to the throne where Odin presently sits. "We both know there is nothing wrong with your hearing, nor with your comprehension."

"Both are true, Loki. But your request has me startled all the same."

 _A miracle, then. There are normally festivals thrown when one occurs._ "It is simple enough. I wish to no longer be in reserve."

"You wish to be stripped of all your titles, powers, and ties?" Odin asked.

"I am tired, father, not a fool. The throne will never pass to me - we both know this. There is only so much waiting one can do for a day which will never come."

"The question is, will you be ready when the day does arrive?"

"I am going to Midgard, not to the afterlife.

"You and I both know you did not answer my question," Odin said.

"I addressed the concern within your question," Loki said.

"No, you addressed all _but_ the concern. You know the difference, better even than Thor."

"Summon me back when that day arrives. It is within your power."

Odin considered Loki and his request. The Allfather considered revealing the truth to the boy here and now, but rejected that thought - he knew that Loki would see it not simply as an insult, but as an insult designed to drive away a man who wished only for a little breathing space and time to think.

"You may go, Loki," Odin granted.

"I would have gone anyway, father," Loki said. "I simply wished you to know."

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**SIF**

While he is surprised to see Sif standing at the middle of the halfway point of the Bifrost Bridge, Loki cannot say it was altogether unexpected.

"You shall not pass," is what she says to him.

"This is your jest," Loki is sure. "Very touching, fair Sif," and sees her eyes narrow at the epithet.

"If you should win, I will let you go. If I win, we return to Asgard, and never speak of it again."

Loki frowned a little. "That hardly seems fair. What don't you want to speak of? That you defeated the wily Loki off the training sands?"

 _No._ "No magic," she says.

"That hardly seems fair, Warrior," Loki says casually.

In response, Sif draws her glaive and sets it to one side of the Bridge, never taking her eyes off Loki as she does so, nor when she places her other weapons atop and alongside it.

And their fight begins. She refuses to allow him to dance just out of reach - _too easy to circle around, for one_ \- and so she matches each step of his with one of her own.

Loki's response is something he refined in the context of telling tales and challenging people: he invades her personal space, keeping too close for her to swing or kick at full force; though he recalls she has a nasty bite.

As impulse had so oft saved him before, Loki listened to a flickering thought and acts on it before he can see what that thought was -- kisses Sif, which takes them both by surprise. Taking advantage of the closeness, she punches him in the gut; but he clings to her, not sure where this ranks in the pantheon of ill-timed choices he has ever made.

As their hits slow and kicks weaken, their knees turn to the quicksilver so reputed of his tongue. Heat pools in their bellies and warms them.

Sif shoves him off, uneasiness knocking her to her knees.

Loki keeps to his feet, but only just; far more accustomed to being unmade, though never in such a way or to such a degree.

"I said no magic!" Sif curses at him.

Loki looks down at her, considers a lie to buoy her spirit and salve her ego. Rejects that idea; "That was not magic," he says, and is correct that it was no seidr or other form of spellcraft or enchantment.

Sif stays where she is, breathing through her mouth.

"But this is," Loki says, and makes Sif vanish. "Right. Now I need to make a slight detour."

**~~~~~**

When Sif could once more see something other than the strands of bent light and wefted cosmos, she found herself standing within a manner of tent, white fabric reaching overhead in a hemisphere with a chimney, while same-colored tunnels ran off in several directions.

"They can't see us, if you're wondering," Loki said as some mortals went by on a crude latticed-metal pathway from one tunnel to another. "So long as we don't go near it."

As he said 'it', Sif's eyes fell upon Mjolnir. "This is where you were going," Sif says, as much a statement as a question as an accusation.

"Not originally, no. But when you refused to let me pass, it occurred to me that you deserve Mjolnir more than most."

"It is Thor's."

"So you say."

Sif waited for him to make a grand reveal.

"You serve Asgard."

"You know this."

"And the Allfather has stated that, now that Thor does not carry the Hammer, it is for the worthy. Are you wrong or is he?"

Sif knew better than to try to respond to that - when Loki formed arguments like that, it was a mire from which enemies had no escape. _I am your enemy now?_

Then one of his nicer smiles graced his face. "I tell you what. I'll make you a deal. Try to lift Mjolnir. If you can't, I'll go back to Asgard with you. With me in chains, if you like. Would you like that?"

 _I don't know what I like, not where you're concerned._ "No tricks, Loki. Straight back to Asgard."

"No tricks," Loki agreed.

"And if I refuse?"

"My abdication goes through as I said, and I do not return to Asgard for a very long time."

Sif ignored the feeling in her gut, in the heart, and she stepped over to where lay Mjolnir. Reaching out one hand for a tenative touch - _I've never actually held it before; always it was Thor's_ \- and it shifted its position by millimeters.

 _I knew it,_ Loki thought proudly.

Sifs were not the only eyes gone wide. Her grip settled on the handle, and gave a tug as alarms resounded through the tunnels and hemisphere.

Mjolnir did not move on the first tug.

**Author's Note:**

> my Sif muse insisted on the Gandalf impression.


End file.
